Ivanka’s ridiculous response to email scandal

Ivanka Trump has been slammed over her response to reports that she regularly used a private email account to conduct government business.Source:AFP

Ivanka Trump has been slammed over her response to a Washington Post report that she regularly used a private email account to conduct government business.

The President’s daughter — when questioned about the practice — said “she was not familiar with some details of the rules”, according to people with knowledge of her reaction.

Peter Mirijanian, a spokesman for her lawyer Abbe Lowell, similarly said: “While transitioning into government, until the White House provided her the same guidance they had to others who started before she did, Ms Trump sometimes used her private account, almost always for logistics and scheduling concerning her family.”

Yeah, people aren’t buying it:

The reason Ivanka Trump didn't know that using her personal email for government business was illegal? She never listened to any of her father's campaign speeches criticizing Hillary Clinton for doing the same. Ivanka was too busy emailing.

there are differences between Ivanka's use of private emails and Hillary Clinton's use. But the sheer audacity to claim you didn't know this would be an issue after the 2016 campaign is mind boggling. https://t.co/R9ILqzHTtV

This one isn’t hard. Ivanka Trump‘s emails should be subjected to the same scrutiny in the press & investigated by law enforcement & Congress like Hillary Clinton‘s were. Unless, of course, that was all about politics.

Ms Trump, in her role as senior White House adviser, reportedly sent hundreds of emails to Cabinet officials, White House aides and assistants using a personal email account on a private server shared by her husband, Jared Kushner.

Some of President Trump’s inner circle found it alarming, the Washington Post reported, saying it bore similarities to Hillary Clinton’s personal email use as secretary of state — a scandal which became a fiery topic during the 2016 Presidential Election campaign.

After all, Mr Trump dubbed his rival “Crooked Hillary” over the erasure of an archive of thousands of emails amid a congressional investigation. His supporters still shout “lock her up” at his public rallies.

How can Hillary run the economy when she can't even send emails without putting entire nation at risk?

Political analysts agree it’s practically impossible Ms Trump was unaware it was a massive no-no, in part because it was so central to his campaign against Ms Clinton.

“It is literally impossible to believe, after everything that transpired during the 2016 campaign regarding Clinton’s use of a private email to conduct government business, that Ivanka Trump was simply unaware that what she was doing wasn’t allowed,” writes CNN’s Chris Cillizza. “It’s just not possible.”

Hillary Clinton’s emails formed a huge part of Donald Trump’s political campaign.Source:Getty Images

Bloomberg’s Timothy L O’Brien likewise described it as a “rather ironic turn of events”, given her father’s relentless pursuit of Ms Clinton.

There are key differences between the two cases; Ms Clinton deleted a number of the emails sent from her private account, and Ms Trump did not create a private server in her house or office — two details Mr Mirijanian sought to clarify.

But O’Brien suggests her excuse of “not knowing” the rules is pretty fishy.

“It’s possible that Ivanka, like her father, assumes that rules are for other people and not the Trumps,” he writes.

Analysts say it’s impossible Ivanka couldn’t have known the rules.Source:AFP

Some White House ethics officials reportedly consider Ivanka Trump “the worst offender in the White House” when it comes to violations of the Presidential Records Act, which mandates that all official White House communications and records be preserved in a permanent archive. That communications network is also secured by the nation’s intelligence agencies.

Incoming Democrats in the House of Representatives have called for an official investigation into the saga.

Representatives for US Representative Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, confirmed the call in a statement.

“We plan to continue our investigation of the presidential records act and federal records act, and we want to know if Ivanka complied with the law,” his office said, adding that a panel probe of White House correspondence began last year but was dropped by Republicans who currently control the committee.